Fit to Play with Jim Johnson: The lure of sport gambling

I made my first sports bet when I was in college. I was getting a haircut and the barber handed me a betting sheet for the week’s college football games. I sat down, filled it out, gave him $5 and left. The next day I learned that I had won – easy money. I showed up early the next week, got the new sheet and placed a bigger bet. I lost all my money. The pain from losing that money overwhelmed the joy of winning. I never placed another bet, intrinsically knowing that I wasn’t as good as I thought.

That wasn’t the case for Jordan Holt, a 43-year-old line technician in Arizona. One day his friend called him and told him FanDuel would give him $50 to bet. Holt resisted, but for a year he was bombarded with TV and radio ads, all telling him how fun it was to bet. Holt acquiesced, signed up, starting slowly but then envisioned winning enough for a family vacation. He bet all hours of the day, chasing his losses with more losses. He took out loans and then more loans, ending up bankrupt and with a marriage on the rocks. There are millions like Jordan, betting in secret, hiding, losing, lost.

Gambling companies tell us that gambling addiction is not on the rise, that the increased opportunities now controlled by states is not a problem. That’s like cigarette companies telling us smoking isn’t unhealthy, that it’s actually good for you. I feel sorry for all these people who have trouble with betting, people who have lost so much. Gambling addiction is only one problem with gambling deregulation.

The Holt story was initially presented by The Athletic who has a partnership with BetMGM. But they are not the only ones who have a gambling partnership. Like Faustus, the NFL and NBA sold their souls. The lure of more money overwhelmed their earlier ethical position to staunch betting. At the recent PGA golf championships, a big sign read ESPNBet. Gambling has become so innocuous that no one seems to comprehend the danger. TV networks serve as bookies, posting the betting odds before and during competition. Will the NCAA join? They don’t seem to do anything but plan additional championships, more teams, adding additional coffers to their bloated strongbox.

One big problem with betting is the Prop bet. This is a bet when someone wagers on what a player might do. These are subtle bets, hard to enforce. For example, you can bet on how many points or rebounds a specific player will obtain in a specific game. Let’s say you bet that John Smith will not score 20 points and 10 rebounds in a game. You give John some money and ask him to slack off a bit. Maybe John goes out with an alleged injury before he scores 20 points. You win. John wins. The game loses.

The NBA recently banned Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter for suspicious participation in games. Porter had claimed dubious injuries, reducing the points and rebounds he normally achieved in games. Not only that, Porter had placed at least 13 bets on NBA games, including bets on the Raptors to lose. Unfortunately, I suspect that every player on the Raptors is playing at 100%, but there is a stain on the players. Does it only happen in professional sports? We are naive if we think this isn’t happening elsewhere. I suspect it is rare, but will fans start to wonder about the veracity of plays? Is a Prop bet involved? Today, college athletes are regularly maligned on social media for their play, often suggesting manipulation. No athlete is perfect; honest mistakes happen. But now honest athletes have to suffer this ugliness.

I have spent 70 years playing and teaching about sport. I wrote last month about how gambling will compromise the purity of sport. I still love the beauty of sport, the effort that goes into excellence, the willingness to risk failure. Maybe I still have a childlike innocence about sport, an innocence that wants to overlook the negative influence money has on the game. We’ve always had sports gambling but never like this. When the Supreme Court began allowing states to control gambling in 2018, the lure of easy money overwhelmed the principles of legislators and organizations that control sport. Athletes are now pawns on a giant gambling chessboard, waiting to fall.

Jim Johnson is a retired professor of exercise and sport science after teaching 52 years at Smith College and Washington University in St. Louis. He comments about sport, exercise, and sports medicine. He can be reached at [email protected]